Sony's 52in Bravia LCD giant - is bigger always better?
Adam Turner
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Nov 18, 2008 9:56 AM
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Sony | http://www.sony.com.au
RRP: $4699 (time of review)
Overall Rating: 
User Rating: No user ratings.
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We all dream of owning a huge television, but is a 52 inch high-def giant like Sony's KDL-52W4000 Bravia all it's cracked up to be?
The short answer is yes. The long answer is, it depends on the size of both your lounge room and your budget.
Note: We've already reviewed the KDL-52W4000 here, but we've decided to take another look, concentrating on the pros and cons of stepping up to a big screen like this.
Videophiles will tell you the optimal viewing distance for Full HD 1080p content is around 1.5 times the size of the screen (screen sizes are measured diagonally). Any closer and you can see the individual pixels in the image. Any further away and you start to lose the fine details. For a standard-def picture, such as a 576p PAL DVD, you can move back to around 4x the screen size without losing much detail.
A quick bit of maths will tell you that, at 1.5x, the optimal viewing distance for 1080p on Sony's 52 inch Bravias is around 2 metres. For your average punter that's just crazy. You might see every fine detail in the image, but for most people it's just not comfortable or practical.
For your average viewer, 2x the screen size is about as close as you'd ever want to sit to the screen. This means about 2.5 metres for a 52 inch television, which is the sweet spot for Sony's KDL-52W4000 Bravia if you want to really immerse myself in a high-def movie. For general viewing you want to push your couch back to the 4 or 5 metre mark, so you don't notice all the little imperfections.
Check your viewing distance
So should march out and buy a 52 inch giant if your lounge room is at least 2.5 metres wide - maybe 3 metres once you allowing for the couch? Not necessarily.
The KDL-52W4000 is a huge black behemoth which would absolutely dominate a room three metres wide. This might not bother you if you're setting up a dedicated home theatre room, but it might if you're dropping this giant television into a multi-purpose living area which you share with your "significant other".
Video processing makes a huge difference
The next issue to consider is your budget, as bigger definitely isn't better if you're buying an el cheapo television. Big screens are great for showing off HD content, but they also magnify any imperfections in the image. This is when you rely on great video processing to give you the best possible picture, it's the secret sauce when it comes to televisions. In other words, it's not the size of your pixels that counts, it's what you do with them.
Sony's KDL-52W4000 - superb Blu-Ray playback
Thankfully video processing is where Sony excels. Firing up Casino Royale on Blu-ray we saw great contrast and impressive blacks for an LCD.
The television offered smooth and natural-looking motion, helped by its 100Hz refresh rate, low motion blur and ability to play 24 frames per second content without conversion.
Smooth HD sports motion and solid SD picture
Switching to fast-moving AFL we saw a sharp, smooth picture watching HD broadcasts, while the television still did an admirable job of displaying the SD broadcasts with the minimal amount of noise and blur.
Conclusion - don't skimp on quality at big screen sizes
The bigger the screen, the more important it is to pay for a good brand television. If you can't afford the top shelf gear, seriously consider dropping a screen size. If your budget doesn't stretch to Sony's KDL-52W4000, you'll get much more viewing pleasure from a smaller 42 inch Bravia than from a cheap 52 inch piece of junk.